Sex on Wheels: Relearning intimacy

Vanessa Szpurko, Special to the Sun05.19.2015

Teri Thorson gave birth to her son Lucian vaginally with some forceps assistance. She often has to correct people who assume he is not her biological son when they see her wheelchair. Lucian is now four.Handout

Teri Thorson was a part-time model and a dancer. A year later she was forced to leave it behind after a car accident left her paralyzed.Handout

Cory Parsons had 'Carpe Diem' (Latin for 'Seize the day') tattooed on his wrists 'so that each morning I would wake up it would motivate me to get up!' (Credit: Lance Sullivan of Concept Photography)Handout

Cory Parsons describes canoeing as ‘a passion of mine’ that he often explored before becoming a quadrepalegic after a diving accident at 23.Handout

In his early twenties, Cory Parsons travelled around the world, including to the Red Sea in Egypt. At 23, he was a quadrepalegic after a diving accident.Handout

At 24, Teri Thorson was a part-time model and dancer. A year later she was forced to leave it behind after a car accident left her paralyzed.Handout

At 5-foot-10, Teri Thorson enjoyed the quiet power that came with her height. After a car accident left her paralyzed, she wrestled with her self-image and feelings of unattractiveness.Handout

Every Aug. 1, the anniversary of his accident, Cory Parsons does something ‘to celebrate my life and be grateful for everything I’m capable of achieving.’ These photos were taken on Parksville Beach on the 13th anniversary of his accident, with then-girlfriend Lisa Gravelle.(Photo by Matt Tinney/Tinney Photography)Handout

Teri Thorson gave birth to her son Lucian vaginally with some forceps assistance. She often has to correct people who see her wheelchair and assume he is not her biological son. Lucian (now four) is pictured here with Thorson in 2013.Handout

Always a lover of fine cuisine, Cory Parsons is now chef with a published cookbook: Cooking with Cory — Inspirational Recipes for the Fearless Cook. (Credit: Lance Sullivan of Concept Photography)Handout

Always a lover of fine cuisine, Cory Parsons is now chef with a published cookbook: Cooking with Cory — Inspirational Recipes for the Fearless Cook. (Credit: Lance Sullivan of Concept Photography)Handout

In their early 20s, neither Teri Thorson nor Cory Parsons had any trouble getting dates.

Thorson, a part-time model and go-go dancer at age 24, was blond and statuesque, accustomed to the attention of men. An early portfolio shot catches her gazing confidently into the camera, a woman ready to take on the world.

Cory Parsons was always seeking out adventure and pushing the boundaries. He had already had several romances by the time he was 23, and in the summer of 1998 headed to Kelowna on his motorcycle to pursue another.

Life as they knew it ended for both of them when accidents put them first in hospital, then in wheelchairs. A car crash left Thorson paralyzed from the chest down at age 25. Parsons’ Kelowna adventure ended in quadriplegia, when he broke his neck in a head-first dive in a swimming area.

***

Thorson’s car crash happened on a gravel road in Australia, where she was visiting a friend. As they were driving to the beach, an unmarked hairpin turn caught them both unaware and her friend was unable to course-correct before the vehicle flipped over three times.

Thorson remembers bits and pieces of the crash.

The car rolling.

The moment the roof caved in on her head.

Her neck dislocating.

People talking to her by the side of the road.

An ambulance driver.

A helicopter ride to a hospital that wasn’t equipped to deal with her injury. A transfer to another.

Almost immediately after the crash, Thorson knew something was wrong. She had damaged her vertebrae from C4 to C7, from her lower to her upper neck. She would eventually be labelled as ‘complete,’ meaning she has no hand movement but good triceps and biceps strength, with some wrist strength as well. But it wasn’t until doctors at the second hospital told her that she realized she was paralyzed.

“But even then, I still didn’t really understand what that meant,” she said.

***

Parsons’ Kelowna trip had its origins in the previous summer, when he had met a woman who interested him. Knowing they would both be in the area again in a year, they agreed to meet up then to see if sparks would still fly.

They did.

As Parsons put it, “It was love all over. We were very, very, very connected.”

Excited after their lengthy separation, the two explored the waterfront and had some drinks before checking out a swimming area in the local park.

Parsons dove in headfirst.

As his head hit the bottom, two vertebrae in his mid-neck, C5-6, broke.

“I knew something was really wrong. I couldn’t move my arms, I couldn’t get myself above water to breathe,” he said.

Luckily, Parsons’ girlfriend was a nurse and immediately knew what had happened. Getting into the water, she held him in a spinal clamp position, stabilizing him with her arms.

Unluckily, the medical team that came to assist pulled Parsons out of the water by his arms, dislocating his shoulders and further damaging his sixth vertebrae.

He was essentially folded in half, and remembers staring at the inside of his bellybutton.

In hospital, he was told he would be a quadriplegic for the rest of his life.

He immediately asked the doctor to “pull the plug.” The doctor refused.

In that moment, the 23-year-old Parsons made a vow.

“If I was going to be a quadriplegic, I was going to be the best effing quadriplegic I could ever be.”

***

LEARNING TO (SELF) LOVE

While all physical disabilities come with challenges, a specific difficulty arises for those injured as older teens or adults – the necessity to reconcile their old sense of identity with their new outer self.

For Thorson, that meant finding a new way in a world in which she had always been defined by a certain kind of physical appearance.

“Prior to my disability, I lived in a kind of superficial world. I was a dancer, I did some modelling,” said Thorson. “I’m 5-foot-10 and I really enjoyed that silent power trip. I was always very shy and never really spoke at any meetings. I just wanted to fade in the background.

“It was like the opposite after I had my injury. It was like, now I’m not this tall, skinny, dancer-model anymore, I’m sitting in a wheelchair and I definitely don’t feel attractive.”

Foremost on Thorson’s mind was the question of what, if anything, was left of her sexual life. After her accident she was left with no feeling below “nipple-level,” as she puts it.

“How participatory can I be, when you can’t move? Is it like being with a dead person? It sounds horrible; that’s what I was thinking about,” she said.

Parsons remembers asking himself a question: “Who the hell is going to love me now?”

It was that kind of uncertainty and fear among those with spinal cord injuries that drove Dr. George Szasz to start the sexual rehabilitation program at G.F. Strong, B.C.’s major rehabilitation facility, in 1975.

Kate McBride now works in the program. “He (Szasz) started training clinicians to take an active role in assessment and management and treatment to help people explore their concerns and work toward their optimal sexual well-being,” she said.

• Education: Providing information on how their body functions now, how they will experience sex differently, and potential sexual positions.

• Tangible support: Interventions and physical therapies specific to their physicality and questions. Medical therapy. Assistance with pregnancy, including a sperm retrieval program.

“The first step is to look at how they view sexuality, their own values around it. If they have some idea of what’s ‘normal,’ maybe we can challenge it,” said McBride.

“One of my clients with a brain injury said, ‘Normal is a cycle on my dishwasher.’ For people with disabilities, if they subscribe to certain values and beliefs around what it is to be sexual and express your sexuality, that can limit them.”

McBride said that while each client’s experience with the program is individual, outcomes are considered successful when clients become comfortable with themselves as sexual beings.

One person Parsons found especially helpful was sexual medicine specialist Dr. Stacy Elliott from the sperm retrieval clinic, whom he called “an absolute gem, just a real fantastic person and a wonderful nurse.” At one time, Parsons and his girlfriend were considering having children, which is when he met Elliott.

“She was very instrumental in helping me understand what my future as a sexual partner was going to be like,” he said.

While Parsons is appreciative of the help he received from the sexual rehabilitation program, his introduction to it was disheartening.

Ushered into a small room with a TV, Parsons was shown an instructional video that seemed more than 20 years old, featuring actors he believes were feigning paralytic injuries.

“I cried my eyes out. If that was going to be my future, I didn’t want to live.”

But it was in the supportive environment of the sexual health rehabilitation service that Parsons was able to find his new sexual self.

“You can create this environment through emotion and love and respect and acceptance of somebody, and the chair just disappears.”

Parsons hopes to one day film an updated version of the video for clients of the service, though he hasn’t yet found the right partner willing to participate.

He has appeared in videos used by the sexual rehabilitation service about a drug containing prostaglandin, an erection-related compound. It is injected into the side of the penis via a small diabetic needle, a process quadriplegics can do themselves.

Thorson’s involvement with the sexual rehabilitation program continued on and off for years, starting immediately after her accident.

At first she was just discussing general topics like sexual health, not feeling ready to acknowledge what her new sex life was going to be.

Five years later, she returned to the program when she was interested in pursuing a relationship.

“I said, ‘I’m never going to wear a skirt again because I hate my legs after atrophying.’ All that changes over time once you get more comfortable with your body,” she said. “It just takes a lot of time and a lot of practice, to make that decision to put an effort into yourself,” she said.

“(With sex) when you’re comfortable to be free and not be so worried about anything, it’s more about a mental, emotional connection.”

RE-ENTERING THE DATING POOL

Both Parsons and Thorson found dating held its fair share of new challenges .

“At first I tried to tell them (new dates) everything that was wrong with me so that there were no surprises,” said Thorson. “It probably scared people away, but it was all a learning lesson. I’m fairly open, so if people want to ask me questions I’m happy to answer them. But I won’t typically offer up the information.”

“Because I was into the club scene, I met lots of guys through there (before the accident). I still did while I was in a chair but I was definitely not getting many dates out of that. They’re happy to tell you how amazing and beautiful and inspiring and whatever you are, but that’s basically where it stops,” she added.

Parsons and the woman he had been seeing at the time of his accident stayed together for 18 months, living together for a year. They parted ways to give Parsons a chance to better understand himself sexually before trying to also attend to the sexual needs of a partner.

He embarked on a personal journey, learning about his new self. He read, wrote, and attended counselling. After six months he re-entered the dating world, though not without reservations.

“Nervous would be an understatement,” he said.

He would approach women he was interested in at bars, but found himself hindered by his lack of abdominal muscles. Raising his voice above the din while also holding up his head for an extended period was difficult.

“You’re really strained to hold a conversation. I would often say a couple of things and get really light-headed and nearly pass out in front of them.”

As a result, Parsons still prefers meeting dates anywhere but a bar.

Thorson had some success through online dating, finding those in her inner circle weren’t a great source of blind date matchups.

“You tend to not be the person that gets hooked up anymore by your friends. You’re not the person that they think, ‘Oh, you would be so great for this guy I know.’”

Parsons, who was venturing out before online dating existed, had more help from friends.

“I had a lot of support from a really great group of friends that introduced me to a girl, kind of a blind date thing.”

He was able to go back to school to study psychology, where he ended up dating a classmate. Having had a relative in a wheelchair, the woman was entirely comfortable with Parsons.

“We didn’t have any problems, the intimacy was wonderful. She was very understanding and very open.”

She and Parsons are still very good friends.

There were some negative experiences, however.

The family of one woman he was dating actually forbade her to see him due to his disability. They insisted he would never be able to protect or support her, which Parsons dismisses as “all bullshit.”

While date invitations were thin on the ground for Thorson, what did come at her often were surprisingly intimate questions from strangers.

“There’s a lot of ignorance out there. People feel so free to ask you, ‘How does it work, how does sex work?’ I say, ‘Well, everything’s still the same, it’s not paralyzed too!’ But they don’t really know. “

Parsons agreed. “Normally you wouldn’t go to a bar and say, ‘Hey, how are you doing? Does your penis work?’ That’s not in the conversation the first time you meet someone. But it is in the wheelchair.”

“People say, ‘I’ve got a question!’ And the first thing I come back with is ‘Yes, and yes I can.’”

LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX, BABIES

As with all sex, positioning and physical support is key.

A wide variety of specialized products — cushions, wedges, seats and slings — are available to help the disabled where their body cannot. There are also a number of sex toys and holsters, from the penetrate-able Fleshlight to the playfully named rectal vibrator Butt Seriously.

“You have to work through it and being with a partner that is accepting of that and willing to not get frustrated,” said Thorson.

Parsons said confidence can go a long way toward soothing nerves.

Embarrassment from talking about sex is relative for him after an awkward experience at an elementary school. He often speaks at schools on the topic of disabilities, and one talk in particular resulted in his face going beet-red.

“I’ve been asked by a five-year-old in front of 300 people in an auditorium, ‘Does your penis work?’ If I can answer that in front of that many people and in front of a kid, pretty much anything else is going to be OK,” he said with a laugh.

“I was extremely fortunate to have partners prior to my injury and have always been very comfortable with my sexuality,” he said. “Post-injury, it just gets better and better. I’ve been having amazing, incredible sex with the most attractive women.

“It definitely takes a willing and supportive partner, but it’s the best sex I’ve ever had – but a different kind of best.”

Asked how he believes his wheelchair factors into a partner’s sexual perception of him, Parsons is blunt: “It’s not the chair they’re f-----g, it’s me.”

Parsons uses an IntimateRider with partners, a specialized chair for those with disabilities.

While Parsons doesn’t think the IntimateRider is perfect (he sometimes worries he will fall off the small seat while in the throes), it does assist him with supporting his weight and positioning, a topic he discusses candidly.

“Generally in most people’s minds, in having intercourse with a quadriplegic man he’s got to be on the bottom and that’s it, which isn’t the case. It’s taken a lot of patience and understanding from partners I’ve had to allow me to be on top and slightly smother her at times when I can’t hold myself up very well,” he said.

“But with her being able to support my weight a little bit and allowing me to get my arms and pillows in certain positions, it’s managed to work out very well where I’ve been extremely successful as a sexual partner on top.”

***

Ten years after her accident, Thorson moved to Victoria. It was while looking online to get to know people in her area that she met her husband. After they got married, they began planning to have a baby.

Their concerns weren’t so much about conceiving and carrying a baby, but about how the labour was going to affect Thorson’s body.

People with her level of injury experience autonomic dysreflexia, a nervous system response to pain in which blood pressure skyrockets to the point of potential stroke. Some quadriplegics and paraplegics may also experience it during sex, as Thorson has twice.

“Your body is trying to tell you ‘something’s happening right now!’ and you get a really bad headache, worse than you’ve ever experienced.”

Unusual for women with spinal cord injuries, Thorson went a week past her due date and decided to be induced. To combat potential complications, she was given an epidural pump so she could self-medicate anytime she felt a nervous system response.

She was even able to give birth vaginally with some assistance from forceps.

“The body is a pretty incredible thing and does its work for you essentially, even though I don’t have the message to push.”

Now separated, Thorson is exploring dating again while raising her four-year-old son Lucian.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Kate McBride of the sexual rehabilitation program said she thinks support and awareness around sexuality for the disabled has been on the rise in the last five to 10 years, but there is still a long way to go.

“It’s happening in the art world, in grassroots organizations, even in the media, just a little bit.

“I’m hopeful that people take this on and champion the cause.”

Thorson said education is the key to combating the ignorance that still exists.

“It’s still a question that a lot of people have. Guys always think they have the right to be able to ask you whether you can have an orgasm or even have sex.”

The fact that paralyzed women can have their own biological children is especially important to her.

“A lot of people don’t think that (Lucian) is mine,” she said.

“That was one of the fallacies my friend told me when I was in the hospital – ‘Oh, it’s too bad you can’t have children anymore.’ But that’s so untrue.”

McBride said the way society pigeonholes sexuality has to end.

“We’re bombarded with these pleasure images but it’s all stereotypical: the able-bodied and young,” she said.

Parsons feels the same, which is why he speaks out on the topic.

“People with disabilities are sexy and they still have relationships and the desire for them, and they still enjoy sex. I want to make sure people know that.”

Thorson used to work in software, but now runs a blog about her life with a disability. She is also in the process of launching a fashion line for women with disabilities. She competed for Canada in the 2004 Athens Paralympic Games and placed eighth in the 400-metre wheelchair racing event.

Parsons devotes much of his time to breaking down stereotypes about what people with disabilities can’t do – such as bodybuilding, bathtub racing, sky-diving, bungee-jumping and scuba diving. He is also a chef with a published cookbook.

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